Orlando
by higurashis
Summary: [InuKag] Again, as old as that era, twenty drops of blood taken to be sealed in a jar and there's a spark that ignites to the reaches of her soul that feels like that all consuming pure energy and in this moment all Kagome can do is cry because this is it. It's another step, a closer attempt, and /for once/ its enough. [Hurt/Comfort, Angst]


**Note:** Over the course of writing this I kept a song on repeat and it gave this story it's title: **XXXtentacion** \- **Orlando** (_17 Album_). I feel so awkward writing fanfiction since I haven't done it in a very long time. Geez for the InuYasha fandom alone its been at least three-five years. Anyways, I hope you all enjoy my rendition of what occurred during those painful three years.

* * *

Kagome takes a bit of blood each day. Just three drops, a single teaspoon here and there kept in jars around her bedroom were Sota nor her mother could find them Sota her little brother who could never _really_ understand the sheer amount of things she'd been forced to encounter whenever she went to the past. It pains her, more-so than the injuries she gives herself to take the blood. For her acclaimed '_madness_' was always believed in the Feudal Era, even if it took a bit of convincing and luck on her part.

But its just another reminder that no one in this era feels as _real_ as things did in the past, and although Kagome can take her history books and countless google searches to make all the connections in the universe connecting these modern times to the past. She can't bring herself to settle any longer. Tokyo, Japan is not the excitement of the Feudal Era, can _never_be, and it only took _three year_s but she can no longer call this time period _home, _for the one her _very soul_ aches for has locked itself from her grasp. Kagome longs for that place were the only '_impossible_' is the very word itself and were ancient Miko magic sings in her spirit instead of these aches of total anguish.

So this nineteen year-old young women saves blood whenever she can, just a bit, three small drops, because the only thing in this era that's _still_ of the one _she_ now calls home is flowing in her veins and on a deeper level a simple blade cannot reach: the depths of her soul.

And who is she to care anymore if Sota sometimes gives her strange looks at the breakfast table when Kagome comes down all bright smiles and words of '_good mornings_' when fingers and legs are covered in wrappings and her eyes are merely a dull color. Again, Sota wouldn't know about the time when Kagome in-fact _did_ have her very soul stripped from her flesh and bones. Leaving her a /_now_/ welcomed hollowness at the memory, a seemingly dream now that the gateway to her _everything_ had allowed itself to close its miracle passage and fall to nothing but rust and cover those once heavenly green grasses in dust.

Well, Sota's in junior high now and he _won't_ ask. It's simply another difference between the eras for Kagome to keep inside the archives of her mind. For the people who are of the past_would've_ asked would've questioned everything from the very moment the first harm had appeared.

Truly, this isn't to say she hates this modern era, no. This time period was her home, her one true place of belonging for fifteen years. She doesn't harbor any ill-will towards it or the people who are now living in it, but Kagome in that final battle with Naraku it took so much of her in those moments to wish the jewel into nonexistence and she's _stuck_ here. Being denied the right to know if everything ended alright or not.

Her room is dark from night and her mouth forms a depressing smile, while her eyes follow the knife tracing her arm with more life than Kagome has had in a _long_ time. Then, those eyes that remind her so much of the unpolluted skies of the past flash in a rage all akin to_ him,_when his demonic blood would over flow into his human heart and she cannot dare to think of him when she's like this and rips the sharp edge through her flesh and as always three more drops of blood into another jar /finally/ full and Kagome is another step closer to finding out.

Wrapping her arm in a bit of cloth she cannot help but mourn at its color: red. The same color as her everything in the flesh, the one whom had given him all of his life and who perhaps resented Kagome /now/ for through their all she'd barely given him a half. Putting the lid on the jar, she twists it closed and puts it among the others. Not a thing would be found out of place if after all these years someone dared to come into her room and search for _something_ ( but if you asked Kagome you'd be met with one answer: _nothing_. )

For the past six months, when Kagome is walking home, it's always when she'd been crossing the street when her eyes spot _him_ and rationally she knows that it cannot be _him_ because his hair may be silver but his ears are those only found when its black. Even so, his eyes are that same honey gold she had always found herself getting lost in but those are just colored contacts. She know Kagome has to tell herself to keep her feet from moving and her legs running for something logically she knows cannot be there. The way the lookalike _him_ had spoken had been wrong as well. Far too soft. It had lacked that confidence and proud nature that was sometimes met cute stubbornness.

Though, someday's Kagome can't control what she's been missing been longing for and finds her legs moving towards him before her mind can even register what is happening. It ruins her, this endless pattern so much like her taking of three drops of blood. _His_ phantomfollows her and his undying _ghost_ doesn't allow her peaceful slumbers because she was the lover who left without every meaning too, without even a single word of: _goodbye_.

So she thinks she could be happy here. In this place were she was born, were everyone is sure to say she belongs and she believes it works. So why, has she upped her daily blood take from three drops to twenty and oh why does it hurt her so much when her mother says she's glad that Kagome is enjoying life again, that she cannot help but spend the nights with a classic knife and jar before creating her own melancholy melody of tears and more thoughts atop of restless sleep: '_You thought i was happy? O' dear mother I am lonely for I've nowhere left to call home._'

Again, as old as that era, twenty drops of blood taken to be sealed in a jar and there's a sparkthat ignites to the reaches of her soul that feels like that all consuming pure energy and in this moment all Kagome can do is _cry_ because this is it. It's another step, a closer attempt, and /for once/ its enough.

This world is going to hell, or on the brick of it at the very least and Kagome has _seen_ hell so she knows what she is talking about. She's a women now, no longer a child who's told to keep quiet and listen twice as much as she speaks. Talk of the government _big brother_ going to greater lengths to keep tabs on this ever growing population of people that is becoming nothing more than smart phones and _God forsaken_ dumb people.

The news only tells half of the truth and the newspaper the other and with intelligence on her side Kagome knows what is becoming of this era this world's future and it is one shedoes not want to live in, die in.

Blue eyes have seen the men in those too dark black suits leaving those small private owned businesses with cases of what Kagome can only assume to be filled with green, what some call the root of all evil in this world and well, Kagome knows there is _no true evil_ in this era. Demons are nothing more than fantasy. Like _magic_, like _fairytails_. For, the only evil which is spoken comes from the people and not the currency on which all business is done.

Ears are always perked to listen in on the whispers of another World War. The third in this time-period's already stained history of bloodbaths, shackled Africans, and the rise of a man who held so much hate for a group of people who'd never done wrong to deserve the massacre of their entire race.

Truly, the more Kagome thinks of this the more she wishes to again touch the unaltered grasses of her beloved's era.

This new war is a battle of what it means to be a human with rights. What it means to make one a man or a women, what it means to be free and one can relate: what can be considered love?

Weeping, she spills her tears onto the red wrapping of her arm for hers is a battle that cannot be won in this era either. Her's is a battle all alone. A war with herself and a war with /again/ making the seemingly impossible possible. Even in this place of scientifically ruled facts and were memories of childhood wonders are mere falsehoods.

Still, there are those days when Kagome cannot help but walk past her old primary school and volunteer with the children who know of no worries and no waking dreams of lovers chained by the flow of time. They speak with so much wanderlust of what they wish to become and do in this world. All they can talk about is being a _ninja_, _doctor_, _musician_, a _demon tamer_, a_magical girl_ like from one of those popular manga's that Kagome had read so much of in her youth until her life had become one, and one girl had said she'd wished to be a priestess.

Kagome hadn't visited her old primary school much after that.

It made her thoughts all flow onto thinking about the feudal era, about herself being a Miko and Lady Kaede and Kikyo, and the many many priestesses of that time. Made her think of the caring villages of the people who lived a life of happiness without all of the things that most people in this era claim they could not function without. Still, she hopes that these children won't lose what makes them them in a world that wishes for everyone to grow up and leave all those dreams in their youth. These ideals, Kagome thinks, will help this world far more than what is going to take place soon. For such good is sure to stand firm and corrupted unlike so much else people wish to turn into a murderous weapon

As always, Kagome /now/ walks the streets looking for that cherished link between this world and the next in that bottle dyed silver and dollar store brand honey gold contacts. However, all she can do is glance in his direction and follow. Follow for as long as she can before nothing more can be done except turn in the opposite direction and walk up those eroding steps of the Higurashi Shrine. She can't do anything but look because she had vowed to always be by InuYasha's side and now she doesn't know what else to do. Everything ruins this shell of a girl now. Before, she'd wish his ghost to leave but now its her only comfort. Her only sanity in knowing that everything that once was, was real and something that she can /one day/ claim back.

Twenty drops, twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four, twenty-five, and she's almost got enough of it now. Always so close but still too damn far.

That unnamed lookalike doesn't come around anymore. Kagome's looked and searched but after a month he has vanished, but there's nothing wrong with that. It isn't nothing that Kagome isn't familiar with, nothing she can't get past because he wasn't really him anyway, after all. She's become used to people becoming distant, then leaving her. Yuka, Ayumi, and Eri had all moved on with there lives. Yuka had went to America to study fashion. Ayumi was at university as a double major; one in chemistry and the other mathematics, and Eri was the only one that Kagome still saw from time to time but nothing was the same. They'd lost the spark they once shared in their days at school. It was always a quick hello and how have things been going and she'd be gone.

Honestly, Kagome was okay with it.

After-all, in her mind its better this way. She no longer belongs to this world and she wonders if she ever really did —– so she gathers the liquidized life easily and with a renewed energy because she just wants to be home and saves each one with care. Another jar full and then another.

Kagome's never been the smartest or the most beautiful but she's Kagome Higurashi and that damn well means something. Even so, she's been studying everything she learned from Lady Kaede and the feudal era in general. Reading modern books on magic and ancient cultures from that time. In-fact, when it comes to getting what she wants, in terms of living – surviving Kagome has never just managed. She fucking excelled at besting the odds; taking her life in her hands. She doesn't need scared arrows to get the job done. If that was the case than she and her friends would've been dead long ago.

Instead, she does things with her own undocumented methods, using that ancient magic in her blood in more unique ways than she's sure have ever been attempted before. Pouring those years and years worth of blood down into that portal less pathway that had once promised so much. Her ability's, had manifested into something greater than the need of being conducted by the way of holding a bow. It had been four years now and in this time. Magic crafted into something truly free of any remits from a existence that predeceased hers. Only giving the bare basis to what was /now/ completely Kagome Higurashi.

The final jar of her life is not poured down into nothingness. Instead, it is used to draw creations so much like the Shikon Jewel that had once led to her originally decent into that wondrous all real and livable feudal fairytails around the wooden bars of the well, with that forgotten energy of this world that still created supernovas to ignite that spark inside her. It was all consuming and all controlling. A special kind of determination that had allowed to see all she had seen and still manage to come out alright while others might've become lost in the sheer thought of it all.

And, perhaps that is why Kagome fairs so well there instead of here. She doesn't think as she simply does. For, there is never enough time to think when its life or death and that's probably the reason why she likes the feudal era best.

She draws that Jewel of Four Souls in her blood, again and again until you can hardly tell what /once/ lay underneath that mass of hand given art. She thinks of nothing but him and the way his honey gold eyes would light up whenever she brought back raman from this shrine or told him all about the stars and how there were consolations that you could see so clearly here but back home the sky was usually to foggy with gray smoke. Kagome could see his natural silver hair and those adorable ears that were softer than anything she'd ever felt before. More supernovas, more sparks and the feeling of being drawn into that well, back onto the place were she /truly/ belonged.

That last jar is empty and she throws it to the ground.

That last jar is empty and her gateway is /nearly/ open now.

That last jar is shattered like Kanna's mirror had once been.

That last damn jar is in pieces and it's taken her four years to get here, four years of agony and being followed around by InuYasha's ghost like an illness that'll never heal. Four years of blood and jars. Four years of old habits that'll surly die easily instead of hard for in a few moments she'll no longer possess the reasons to take from her body because what so tightly holds her soul will be in her embrace in the flesh and all this work will be fucking done.

As she did originally she picks up a glass shard and cuts a finger, which signal three drops of red to which, she hopes will be the last to ever be forced from her body by her own hand. And with that. This girl who'd been caught between present and past makes her choice: she jumps.

* * *

As she grew near, the buzzing in his stomach intensified but it wasn't akin to the mutterings of butterflies he'd heard about all his life, _no_. It was instead like a swarm of bees in thick swamp air that had gathered together in a blazing rage to protect their home from an unwanted self-dubbed invitations.

Ten more steps, nine more steps, eight more steps, and she kept counting in her head until she reached the fabled magical three

( but its formation has found itself in the _mere steps_ of a _mere __girl _):  
simple flesh embodied _womenhood_.

Two more steps…

One more step…

And he's found himself stuck between a failed past and uncertain future. This girl who before was his everything but his _lost_ everything. As it stood, was InuYasha willing to make that same decision again?

Kagome, once curly locks now straightened to create a contrast between black and the oceanic blue of her eyes. A pattered skirt blew in the gentle breeze while yellow and blue were stuck in a transfix that spoke more than any words could, than any words _can_.

Now, the buzzing of nature's honey bees had become demonic hell-hounds ripping and clawing to be unleashed from their cage. Unconsciously a fanged tooth dug into his bottom lip leaving a miniature trail of blood in its wake

She makes the ( _remaining._ ) space between them far _too real_ ( it was _moretruth_ than he'd been granted in _three years_. ) and the way her words flowed should've been like sacrilege upon his world. A place that was riddled with unholy grounds and twisted men who laughed that the prospect of countless sin.

" I missed yo "

Hell-hounds having turned ballistic broke from their damnable cage and clawed fingers flexed reaching out and hoping _praying_ that her form didn't fade from the moment he touched her. People had never known him to be desperate but a man could change faster than the seasons when all he knew fell apart.

Arms became like towers as they held onto Kagome and InuYasha held distaste for himself in this moment because he'd told Shippo all those years ago that men don't show their tears but how could one _not_? When everything he _did not_ deserve was _right_ in front of him. Kagome, all _flesh flesh_, and real…

" Never leave me again, _please_. "

A weakened cry, legs long given up supporting a hanyou and he _hugged_tighter and tighter until InuYasha thought his very arms would shatter from the sheer force of it all. ' _Don't fade away_ ' kept replaying in his mind. Over and over that he silently he could've used the Shikon no Tama to wish all his uneasy demons away.

His eyes stayed shut fast. This time, not knowing what he'd do and find himself holding onto nothing than himself and he spoke in a chocked whisper, " Tell me that this is real and that your always going to be here, _with me_. _Always_. "

Smaller hands went up and gently petted the top of white locks and five-uncooked dumpling soft ears. Her words not having been needed. She had more than enough time to cry, more than enough time to having gone through all the steps of grieving but InuYasha? Kagome could only imagine all the hurt and sufferings he'd kept bottled up until now.

" Isn't it like I said, before? I'll _always_ be by _your_ side, InuYasha. "


End file.
